The Refugee
Journal of Antava, a Redguard
24th of First Seed, 4E 217
At last I am done with this awful frozen land. I thanked all the gods of Hamerfell the minute Ulfric's Defeat left the harbor. I had to wait two weeks for the Sea of Ghosts to finally thaw. Still, the waters are churning with ice. It would not surprise me if Old Captain Vernius anchored right here and delayed the voyage for another day or two. The seasons come and go, as the gods decree, but Skyrim will still be Skyrim. Fifteen years the land has been at peace. Fifteen years and I have yet to accept this place as my home. Now I will leave it forever. My native land calls me. And so I depart.
As I scrawl these letters on a stolen scrap of parchment in the fading light of dusk, perhaps I should formally introduce myself. My name is Antava. My mother was named Saadia. Or so they tell me. I remember nothing of her, except in the strangest of dreams. She left me in Solitude as an infant, placing me under the care of her distant cousin, dear Aia Arria. She taught me how to sing, and read, and write, and how to not let men get their way with me. She taught me that my mother had been cast out of our native land by some fierce Alik'r warrior named Kematu. Aia Arria told me that I was the last gift Saadia gave to the world. After my birth, she disappeared. It must have been Kematu who finished her off.
But whenever I would ask about my father, her tone would change. She would speak of him in vague tones, telling me he was a soldier of the Imperial Legion who fought boldly in the war against the Stormcloaks. He died on the battlefield, she said, but I sensed some restraint in her voice. I wonder if I will ever know the truth.
Alas, here I sit, crammed into a tiny corner of the bunk room of Ulfric's Defeat, where I am employed as a deckhand and singing girl. I have said my farewells, and I have boarded of my own free will. The ship reeks with the scent of Nords and skeever dung, but I am accustomed to it. I am from Skyrim, but it is not my home.